Flight of the Sparrow

by Amy Belding Brown

  Then Joseph surprises her. In spite of his rigid bearing and stony gaze, he takes Mary’s hands and draws her to him. “We must pray for guidance,” he says gently. “You must not lose hope. Truly, God has not forsaken you. Not after all you have suffered.”

  Mary is nearly moved to tears by his rare tenderness. “But that is my point, Joseph,” she finally manages to whisper. “If my ordeal was of God’s making for New England’s redemption, then it appears to have failed. For I see no benefit to New England or myself that compensates for the great oppression—the injustice—of what we have done—are doing—to the Indians and the Africans.”

  He releases her then, almost pushes her away. Mary is not surprised, for she knew before she spoke that he would find her thoughts repellent. His scowl returns and an angry flush rises in his face. For a moment, Mary thinks he might strike her. Instead, he turns and begins to pace the length of the room.

  “You try me severely, Mary. Have I not exhibited an extraordinary patience with you? Have I not counseled you and prayed for you and read Scripture to you day after day? Yet this is your recompense—this stubborn refusal to submit to my wisdom?”

  She shakes her head. “God alone can save me, Joseph. You yourself have said so.”

  “Aye, God alone. But you must exhibit a proper inclination toward His will. You must soften the soil of your heart so that He may plant the seed.”

  He waits for her response, but she says nothing. Nor does her face or body betray any inner tumult. She has, somehow, in the long months since her release, fashioned a kind of peace with herself.

  “’Tis a dangerous business to try God’s patience, wife. He will not endlessly indulge your obstinacy.”

  “So you have oft told me,” she murmurs.

  “And you think my words idle?” His voice rises.

  Mary takes a step backward, for his look alarms her. “Not at all,” she says. “Nothing about you has ever been idle.”

  Whether he perceives the insolence in her remark or not, he does not say, but quickly turns his back and leaves the room. Mary does not know where he sleeps that night, for he fails to join her in their bed. She does not see him again until morning, when she comes in from milking the cow and finds him sitting at table, awaiting his breakfast.

  Neither of them mentions their argument. Neither apologizes. Mary is sure that he will eventually raise the issue again, but that time never comes. Only three days after his sermon, when they are all seated at table on a bright Saturday afternoon, Joseph dips his spoon into a meat pie and raises it to his lips. As he opens his mouth, a troubled look contorts his face. He drops the spoon, clutches his chest, vomits and slumps sideways in his chair, dead.

  For a moment Mary has the odd thought that he has been shot. It is as if she has suddenly returned to Lancaster and is reliving that terrible day. Even as she gets to her feet, she glances at the window, her eyes searching for some sign that an arrow or bullet has pierced the glass. But there is neither arrow nor bullet. Joseph has been slain not by Indians, but by God.

  Mary stands with her hand pressed to her mouth. Only after several minutes pass does she think to look at Joss and Marie. They sit, staring at their dead father. Mary finds her voice and sends Joss for the doctor, though it is plain her husband is beyond reviving. She sends Marie to fetch a neighbor. And for a few moments she is left alone.

  She stands very still in the middle of the room. She thinks briefly that she should be doing something, but she cannot make her limbs move. She becomes aware of the hiss of the fire in the hearth and the sweet yeasty smell of the bread she set baking. A gust of wind shudders against the house clapboards. The sparrow utters a sharp chirp and begins hopping up and down, flapping its wings.

  An odd feeling comes over her. It is the same sensation she felt when James cut her free of the rope around her neck—a confused and startled elation. She finds herself whispering over and over the one thought that stands alone in her mind: how surprising are the providences of God.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  In the early days and weeks after Joseph’s death, Mary is shrouded in a haze of activity. The people of Wethersfield surprise her with their kindness and generosity. Women come to sit with her day and night. They bring her kettles of fish stew, meat pasties, rounds of cheese, and loaves of bread. They read psalms of consolation and pray with her for God’s comfort and mercy. The men come and cut her wood, milk the cow, and feed the ox and horse. The church elders vote to allow her to stay in the parsonage and provision her with Joseph’s salary while they seek a new minister.

  Mary is properly somber and assures people she trusts Joseph’s soul to God’s care. No one tells her she should not mourn. Some of the women try to console her by informing her how difficult it is to bear an unexpected and sudden death. She wonders if they have forgotten that she witnessed the brutal murders of her sister and nephews and brother-in-law. Joseph’s death was, by comparison, exceedingly gentle.

  The truth that she confesses only to herself is that she has experienced an unexpected freedom in her husband’s absence. As the days pass, she falls into a contented acceptance of her widowed state. She knows she cannot remain in the parsonage indefinitely—the congregation will soon call a new minister—but she has a strong inner assurance that she will be able to find a way to survive this new misfortune. She wonders if this is the fruit of enduring her captivity—or something else, more fundamental to her character.

  She frets over Joss and Marie, worries that witnessing their father’s death is one too many blows in their young lives. Without a man to provide food and shelter, no family can survive intact for long, and Joss is not yet of age to assume a man’s duties. Marie takes to her bed until Mary reminds her that her usual chores are now compounded by her father’s absence. Marie tries to bear up cheerfully under this new burden, but Mary knows she feels vulnerable and frightened. Mary wonders why she has not noticed before how truly her own feelings are reflected in her daughter’s heart.

  Joss says nothing about his father’s death. He makes no change in his conduct, but continues to leave the house and disappear into the forest for days at a time. One morning, Mary comes into the kitchen to find him trying to conceal a long knife in his jacket. He spins to face her, but it is not a look of shame or embarrassment that he turns on her, but an unfriendly scowl.

  “You already have a knife, Joss.” As Mary crosses the room to him, he backs away. “Why do you take mine?”

  “I have need of it,” he says, grimly.

  “What need? I cannot imagine what use you might have for it that is greater than my own.”

  “’Tis a secret,” he says, and before she can question him further, he runs from the house. He does not return for two days and Mary never sees the knife again.

  It takes her several months, but Mary slowly comes to understand that Joss, as surely as Sarah and Mari, is lost to her. She considers the possibility that he has been lost since the moment of his capture.

  • • •

  Mary knows she cannot enjoy her single condition for long without rousing the concern of her neighbors. In Connecticut Colony, as in Massachusetts Bay, it is the law that every man, woman, and child must live in a well-ordered household, ruled by a man. She knows she will have to find a new husband, or return to Massachusetts to live under the roof of one of her brothers while her children are bound out.

  Then, as she is taking tea and warming herself at Dorcas Walsh’s hearth one February afternoon, a tall man walks into the room and announces he is looking for Dorcas’s husband, Abiah. He introduces himself as Samuel Talcott, a solicitor and the commissioner of Wethersfield. He tells Mary he has heard of her plight and he offers his condolences.

  As Dorcas hurries off to find her husband, Mary looks up into Samuel’s pleasant face and her breath catches in her throat because something in his eyes reminds her of James. His gaze has the same com
passion, and the same fierce penetration, though his eyes are gray instead of brown. They talk of the recent snowstorm and discuss the Test Act in Parliament that requires all in the House of Lords and the House of Commons to take an anti-papist oath. When Abiah appears and Samuel takes his leave, she notices how completely her hand disappears in his warm palm. It seems to Mary that he holds her fingers for a moment longer than he should. “If there is aught I can do to help,” he says, “I trust you will send for me.”

  “I shall,” she says. Her cheeks are still flushed long after he leaves.

  • • •

  On a sunny morning in March, Mary and Marie begin the weeklong process of spring cleaning. They fill the barrel in the yard with hot water and spend the morning washing the linens and draping them over bushes to dry in the sun. In the afternoon they carry the furniture outside and scrub the floor with sand until it shines. They sweep out the hearth and the small brick oven set into the wall. As they prepare to wipe down the walls for a new layer of whitewash, Mary carries the birdcage into the yard and sets it on a stump. The sparrow chirps and flutters, beating its wings against the iron. “Yes, little one,” she murmurs, unlatching the cage door. As soon as the door swings open and the sparrow flies out, she knows she has wanted to release it since the day Joseph presented it to her.

  She watches the bird as it bounces through the air in its scalloped flight. It turns and swoops down over her head and lands on the low branch of a tree. A moment later, it begins to sing.

  • • •

  Though Joseph’s estate is small, it still must be properly executed. When Mary is granted administration rights in April, she is at first honored, and then alarmed. She has no knowledge of the law or the complexities of inheritance. Dorcas reminds her that Squire Talcott has offered his assistance; he knows the law and is well respected in town. “And he needs work to keep his mind harnessed,” she says. “His wife, Hannah, died a year ago this past February.”

  Mary seeks Samuel out on a gray afternoon and finds him at home, fitting a new window into his parlor. He puts down his tools and wipes his hand on his apron. He seems inordinately pleased to see her and offers his help again, even before she has the chance to present her plea. He insists on discussing the matter at once and so they sit in his kitchen drinking tea served by a merry-faced young woman. The house is brimming with children and servants. When Mary leaves it is almost dusk and there is a buoyancy in her step that she has not possessed in years.

  Samuel calls on her the next day and together they begin sorting through Joseph’s papers. There are many—it appears that papers are the chief part of Joseph’s estate—but Samuel is undaunted. He comes daily, sometimes bringing one or two of his children with him. Mary is delighted, especially with little Nathaniel, who is not yet two. She is pleased to note that Marie quickly forms a friendship with his eldest daughter, Hannah.

  Samuel is a scholarly, quiet man who graduated from Harvard College six years after Joseph. The way he looks at Mary and gently guides her decisions quiets her mind and heart. When he begins to touch on matters more personal than Joseph’s estate, she encourages him. He is honorable and highly regarded, a landowner, a man of boldness and daring, active in the militia. He tells her that he has eight children, five of them in sore need of a mother’s guiding hand, especially Ruth and Nathaniel, who are too young to remember their mother. Mary’s heart goes out to them.

  Samuel begins openly courting her in May. He is as gentle in temperament as he is strong in body and mind. He tells Mary that he admires her steadfastness as well as her passionate spirit. He listens to what she has to say with concentrated interest. He encourages in her a freedom of tongue and temper that Joseph condemned.

  Mary begins to wonder if her growing affection for Samuel is sinful or liberating. She argues with herself at night, lying awake in her bed. Is it possible for a woman to marry for love? Could it be that a shared sense of humor is more important than wifely obedience? When she sleeps, she often dreams of Samuel. Sometimes she is walking with him beside the river, watching canoes filled with Indian warriors cross to the other side. Sometimes she is on the trail behind him, cheerfully carrying a heavy basket despite the forehead strap digging into her skin. She wakes, wondering: is she in love with Samuel Talcott?

  When Samuel proposes marriage, Mary happily accepts, though she fears she has little to bring to the union except for her body and her nearly grown children. But that is enough to satisfy him. They are so well suited that neither sees any reason to wait. They are married on the sixth of August.

  It seems to Mary, as she becomes wife to Samuel and mother to his children, that the desires of her heart have been fulfilled. She cherishes her new husband’s kindness and compassion, as well as the vigor and strength of the young ones who daily surround her. She cuddles and caresses Nathaniel, Rachel, and Benjamin in a way Joseph chastised her for doing when her own were young. When she forbids any punishment beyond scolding, Samuel raises no objection. Mary applies the practices she saw Indian mothers use with their children, and her new charges respond joyfully, with love. Sometimes, in private moments after they are married, Samuel calls her his “sweet savage,” a jest that Mary enjoys, for indeed, she is savage at times when they lie together in their great bedstead.

  Samuel is curious about her captivity, and she willingly answers his questions. When she mentions that she wrote a narrative of her experiences at Increase Mather’s request, he asks to read it. She explains that she no longer has it, that she gave it to Increase long ago and has heard nothing of it since. She suspects it was destroyed when his house burned in the great fire of 1676. Or, if it was saved, perhaps he found repairing her writing deficiencies too difficult a task to pursue. Samuel questions her closely. Is it possible the manuscript was saved and misplaced? Or put aside and forgotten? He declares that she must write to Increase and ask him what became of the narrative, for if it still exists her husband wants to read it.

  Mary gives him a merry smile, for she knows Samuel as a forceful man who usually finds a way to get what he wants. “I warrant it will be a waste of good ink and paper,” she tells him. “It has been so long since I gave my pages over, I doubt he even remembers them.”

  But Samuel continues to press her. Finally, more than a year after their wedding, Mary writes a letter of inquiry. To her surprise, Increase responds within the month, informing her that he still has her pages, that he has recently had the opportunity to improve them, and is planning to publish them within the year. Because of its length and importance, her narrative will be printed as a separate volume. He adds that he has made some important additions to it, including appropriate Scriptures and lessons. Surprised to learn that the manuscript survived, Mary does not object, though she suspects that he has twisted much of what she has written to his purposes. The blessings of motherhood have so thoroughly pervaded her life that she has little time or interest in anything else.

  Increase assures her he has crafted a preface designed to secure Mary full acceptance as a woman of faith and piety throughout the colonies. He has arranged for Joseph’s last sermon to be included. In the spring, she receives a package of proof pages of the book along with a note from Increase informing her that the type is already being set in Cambridge.

  Mary carries the pages outside and sits under the great chestnut tree behind the house to read them. The youngest children scamper around her in the grass like newborn lambs until they finally tire, lie down beside her, and fall asleep. She reads as if it were not her own story, as if she does not know it by heart. In truth, she does not—for Increase has transformed it from a ragged tale of hardship, endurance, and grief into a polemic on steadfast faith.

  That evening, as she shows Rachel how to set the dough for the morrow’s baking, she tells Samuel that she regrets submitting the narrative. “Mr. Mather has corrupted my story and savaged the Indians in ways I did not intend,” she says.

&
nbsp; Samuel, who has pulled his great chair near the open door to catch the breeze, is cradling a sleepy Nathaniel in his lap. He tilts his head and smiles at her, a now familiar gesture that Mary has come to cherish. “But he has preserved your record of their generosity and fortitude. And shown your courage and forbearance in the face of adversity. You have naught to regret.”

  “Nonetheless, I fear I shall,” Mary says.

  • • •

  In May, Mary travels with Samuel to Boston, leaving the youngest children in the care of Samuel’s older brother John and his wife. It is the first time Mary has returned to the Bay Colony since she moved with Joseph to Wethersfield. Samuel has arranged for them to stay with a distant cousin who lives near the harbor in Boston. After they settle in, he rents a stylish hackney coach imported from England. It is fitted with red leather seats, and heavy green fustian curtains to draw over the windows to keep out the road dust.

  Over the next few days, Samuel and Mary travel to visit her sisters and brothers and their families. Despite the luxury of the coach, Mary feels jostled about like a mouse in a box. Yet she is delighted to be reunited with her family. Her sisters Ruth and Joanna are still neighbors in Wenham, both married and raising large families. It is good to sit with them in Ruth’s parlor and talk as sisters again. Their concern for Mary is sincere—driven neither by curiosity nor false interest. She walks with them through the town, marveling at how it has changed since her girlhood there.

  The next day in Ipswich, Mary is joyously reunited with her sister Hannah, who married Samuel Loomis the year after Mary moved to Wethersfield. Hannah is plainly content with her new situation, her sweet disposition unchanged despite her weeks in captivity. Mary greets her two-year-old son, Samuel, for the first time. She covers him with kisses and caresses, which she never would have done in Joseph’s presence. “You have changed, sister,” Hannah remarks, eyeing her thoughtfully as Mary dandles little Samuel on her lap.